Chapter 155

Chapter 155. Fandom Decency Has Hit Rock Bottom

I finished talking things over with Seo Hoe-dong.

Instead of a documentary, we would go with a special variety-show format.

One that took advantage of something the members had never really been able to show on the variety programs they'd appeared on together.

Idol groups naturally tended to split apart over time.

If they failed, they disbanded entirely.

If they succeeded, individual activities began.

Whether anyone liked it or not, Blue Moon wouldn't be an exception.

Serin would probably become an actress.

Youngchae would probably become a model.

Enjoy this moment while it lasts.

Before that happened, we needed to show the fans as much of Blue Moon's beautiful chemistry as possible.

So this time, we'd preserve the members' natural chemistry like in the documentary while maximizing the entertainment value like a variety show.

Fans would understand how enjoyable it was just to watch all four beautiful members of Blue Moon together as one group.

After finishing my call with Seo Hoe-dong, I was about to resume the meeting when a text message arrived.

It was another future-spam upgrade notice.

It came before I filled the count this time?

Wasn't the last one number seven?

Shouldn't I have received number eight next?

Unlike the previous upgrade, which had arrived after the ninth message, this one came after the eighth.

I didn't bother trying to figure out why.

Every upgrade so far had developed in a direction that gave me more information.

If it wanted to evolve faster, that was only good for me.

[Upgrade to receive more files.]

[Upgrade Requirement: https://fomrayuppmi.to/Rf1klm45s]

[Details of the upgrade will be provided upon successful completion.]

This time, they sent a link.

Usually, the mission itself was written directly inside the upgrade notice.

It was the first time an upgrade message had worked like this.

Still, I'd been opening these links constantly, so it wasn't particularly strange.

I clicked it.

A survey page appeared.

[The National Medical Journal 'MediVoucher' and Kyungguk Pharmaceutical's New Drug Development Research Team sincerely thank you for participating in the biological-equivalence trial for a generic version of 'Chloroldipine Plus Tablets,' developed for real-case immune-system data analysis related to malignant-tumor suppression and the inhibition of abnormal cell proliferation.]

[We are conducting a pre-trial survey to identify risk factors. Please answer the following questions sincerely.]

What the hell was all this?

First, the upgrade had arrived differently from all the previous ones.

Now even the upgrade method itself was different?

For now, I clicked View Questions.

Unlike normal surveys, each question had to be submitted individually.

At first, it asked for ordinary things.

Name.

Sex.

Age.

Height and weight.

But the questions gradually became suspiciously detailed.

[Blood type]

[Family medical history]

[Missing organs, if any]

[Current residential address]

After a long list of questions that made me feel like filling everything out would eventually get me kidnapped to China and cut open for spare parts, one final question appeared.

[Personal goal.]

Personal goal?

I'd already sent them everything from my blood type to my shoe size.

They even asked for my MBTI.

Might as well keep answering honestly.

Looking back, I'd lived for a long time without any particularly clear goal.

But these days, wasn't Blue Moon's success my goal?

I typed:

[Blue Moon's success]

Then I pressed the final Submit button.

A pop-up appeared.

[Invalid information.]

Why was that invalid?

I tried all kinds of ordinary answers.

[Make money.]

[Gain social status.]

[Seek the truth.]

[World peace.]

[Gender equality and freedom of hairstyles.]

Same result every time.

[Invalid information.]

I thought again.

Then I entered:

[Work happily for a long, long time with Blue Moon and the Universe family.]

Blue Moon's success was only a means to an end.

Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if Universe remained a small company with a family-like atmosphere.

As long as we could keep working together for a long time.

Maybe that was a more natural wish for a fan than simple success.

[Upgrade complete.]

And just like that, the upgrade finished.

I was looking forward to what the new version could do.

At the same time, I felt strangely unsettled.

It was certainly easier than missions telling me to save someone's life.

But after explicitly stating a goal other than success to the spam itself, I felt as though I'd suddenly realized something.

Don't rush toward the finish line.

Keep going for a long time.

Everyone around me, even the spam, seemed to be telling me the same thing.

Bzzzt.

The moment the upgrade finished, another spam message arrived.

[Title: 1/10]

[A mobile invitation to a baby's first birthday celebration has been sent.]

[We kindly request your attendance.]

[wa.yo/FZejv]

Come to think of it, they never told me exactly what had changed with the upgrade.

The title counter had reset, but otherwise the format looked pretty much the same.

When I opened the link, there were still three thumbnails.

If the format hadn't changed, then my approach didn't need to change either.

After the meeting ended, I returned to my office and sat down.

Like always, I began analyzing the thumbnails.

The first showed a familiar-looking woman exchanging something with a man in a hood.

Short hair.

Semi-formal clothes.

A slightly vacant-looking expression.

It was Kim Hye-jin, employee of ZJ headquarters' marketing department, powerful online blogger, and owner of the Nutube channel Youngchae's Crush, among her many activities.

It looked like she was doing some kind of secondhand transaction.

The second thumbnail showed a list of idol fan cafés sorted by membership count on an internet portal.

One name stood out at number three.

Full Moon.

I'd never heard of it.

It looked new, yet it was already third?

More importantly...

Didn't they know that Moon was ours?

Even if it was only a fandom name, there were still lines you did not cross.

This was like some newly founded foreign country suddenly deciding to put the Taegeuk symbol on its national flag.

I could not overlook this.

Still, I checked the third thumbnail first.

The third video showed several workers talking on a blue fishing boat, the kind commonly used by fishermen.

The boat was underway, but they didn't seem to be fishing.

A large number of boxes with Chinese writing were stacked in front of the wheelhouse.

They were close enough for me to read the name.

[蓝月亮]

I couldn't speak Chinese.

But I could recognize that.

I'd seen those simplified characters over and over when Serin visited China for a 〈Introduction to Unrequited Love〉 fan meeting.

蓝月亮 was Blue Moon's Chinese name.

I selected the third video.

The second one also seemed connected to Blue Moon.

But the third directly named us.

When the video played, I saw two workers looking down toward the cargo hold.

Thankfully, they were speaking Korean.

"There's a hell of a lot coming in."

"If they're counterfeiters, I guess they've gotta compete with quantity."

"Counterfeit? Aren't all these going to Universe or something?"

The man with his hands clasped behind his back handed the other one what looked like a shipping document.

"Why would the headquarters order fake goods?"

"Maybe they're not fake."

"Why would legitimate products come in through the back door like this? They'd put them on a proper big ship. You're naïve."

So they were bringing counterfeit goods in from China.

And not just any counterfeits.

Blue Moon counterfeits.

Probably merchandise.

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Last time, Tienhua's enormous pile of money had crossed the sea.

Now counterfeit goods were coming over?

I checked the date.

September 4.

There was still a fair amount of time.

Should I just go find those fishermen and ask who hired them?

That would be convenient.

But there was probably more I needed to deduce first.

One strange point immediately came to mind.

Why go this far?

Even if the goods were counterfeit, was there really a need to transport them like narcotics?

Blue Moon's official merchandise was trademarked.

Selling unauthorized copies without Universe's permission was obviously illegal.

And if the company behind them had been banned from normal overseas trade, then smuggling them in might make sense.

If that was the case, I might be able to identify the company too.

It felt like I was still missing a clue, but I left the video page so I could start investigating immediately.

Then I noticed something.

The words [Deleted Video], which had always appeared before, were nowhere to be found.

The other two videos were still there.

Apparently, that was the upgrade.

I could keep watching the other files.

Just in case, I clicked the second video first.

The video played.

A long list of fan clubs scrolled across the screen.

Except for Full Moon, I recognized every name.

But strangely enough, Apollo wasn't anywhere on the list.

After the list went through page after page, I finally spotted Apollo.

About two hundred members.

Two hundred?

Our massive Apollo fandom had fallen to two hundred people?

Where the hell had the more than sixty thousand members gone?

Had something happened to Blue Moon?

No.

That couldn't be it.

Something had happened to the fan club itself.

Dae-hun handled fan-community management, so I'd need to check with him.

"Looks like almost all of them are gone now. We don't actually need the official title anymore, right?"

"Right. As long as we can sell the products properly. I bet even those remaining two hundred are inactive accounts."

Two male voices spoke from outside the frame.

So this was their doing.

They said that now everyone was gone, they could sell their products properly?

Apparently, they were trying to make money off the fans.

But if that was their goal, destroying the fan club entirely would only make things harder.

Which meant they hadn't actually erased Blue Moon's fandom.

That would be impossible anyway.

They had created a new fan café and migrated the fans there.

All so they could sell this so-called product more easily.

Then the new fan café was almost certainly the Full Moon I'd seen earlier.

It even had the word Moon in its name.

I rewound the video and checked Full Moon's member count.

Sixty-six thousand.

Almost exactly the size Apollo had been before.

I wanted to find out who the men were, but the video showed only the computer screen.

Their faces never appeared.

Just in case, I searched for Full Moon now.

Nothing.

Apparently, it hadn't been created yet.

First counterfeit merchandise.

Now counterfeit fans.

My head hurt.

I prayed the final video would still be available and left the page.

It was.

The first video, which had looked like the least important one, was the most shocking of all.

Even compared to the second and third.

"Here, 〈Star Night〉! Take it quickly. I'm only charging the original retail price, so don't expect any discount."

"Hehehe... Heh."

Kim Hye-jin handed a Blue Moon album to a man.

The man grinned stupidly, pulled some crumpled bills from his pocket, and handed them to her.

Kim Hye-jin.

Even you were selling Blue Moon albums?

You told me to break up with Kim Serin.

Were you planning to break up with Blue Moon yourself?

Fandom decency had truly fallen to the ground...!

After receiving the money, Kim Hye-jin turned around without even saying goodbye and began walking toward the villa where she lived.

The male fan lingered instead of leaving.

Then suddenly, he screamed.

Startled, Kim Hye-jin turned around.

The man grabbed a brick from the ground and rushed at her.

He struck her in the head.

She collapsed.

Even after that, the beating continued.

The strength gradually disappeared from Kim Hye-jin's body.

What the hell?

This was serious.

Kim Hye-jin would either be critically injured...

Or killed.

I checked the date.

July 30.

The day after tomorrow.

It wasn't as if I'd only saved one or two people from dying before.

I could handle this too.

It was also the closest event in the future.

And I still had no clear way to resolve the other two videos.

It was only a vague hope, but maybe saving Kim Hye-jin would give me another clue about the counterfeiters.

Before the upgrade, all three videos in a set had always been connected somehow.

I could only hope that was still true.

But how exactly was I supposed to stop a lunatic carrying a brick?

I'd have to physically fight him.

I wasn't afraid of getting hurt.

Well, I was.

But I wasn't going to run away just because of that.

Still, if I used professionals, I could minimize the damage.

For the other videos, I'd ask Dae-hun for help.

I told him to investigate whether counterfeit Blue Moon merchandise was currently circulating anywhere.

Then I called the private security company I'd used from time to time.